Double face

I loved DOSSIER K, ten years ago, from the same director and starring the same leads too. It was a bleak, dark, story about Albanese mafia. This one is one more serial killer scheme, as dozens of millions stories written for movie and TV industries. Not my basic cup of tea, but some of them are awesome, riveting, poignant, and above all, unusual, providing great surprises. This one is not worst than other ones, and at least better than most American that I have seen; and I admit that there were not batches of them. I repeat, I don't crave for serial killers. From Belgian, I could expect something gruesome and of course awesome in the same time. I remember WASTE LAND and THE BEAST several years ago, from Belgian too. Not for the squeamish and the whole family at supper time.....This one is a bit smoother, compared to the two previous movies, and closer to the German's LAND OF MURDERS ; itself the remake of the Spanish LA ISLA MINIMA.... But, I repeat, I am not a specialist of this kind of movie. Maybe I am wrong.

This movie is one of the better Belgian crime movies I've seen so far. In the beginning the movie has its flaws with some unclear scenes or stereotypes, but the more you get involved in the murder case, the more clear it becomes how excellent the cinematography fits with some exciting action scenes. Towards the climax of the movie there are some very well directed action scenes and the movies becomes more tensive and the story as well proves to be more ingenious.

Some things are easy to see through and I would say, if you've seen a couple of thrillers, you won't have any issues seeing where this is heading. Still the characters are interesting and you can mostly understand their motivation and also can relate in general.

That is until the very end, where it all blows up. Well at least a little bit. Depending on your views of how it ties things together at the end and especially how it resolves them, you may have a problem with the movie. If not, you will be enjoying a crime drama, that is predictable but still has class and good actors in it.

Another example of how bad the Belgian movie industry has turned out to be these last years, especially then these detective movies are starting to be all the same. In the old days they wouldn't dare to call it a film, they would just call it an episode in the German crime series on TV. Really: why would anybody give points to this piece of junk? It is not worthy to be taking your time of life. Fits Verheyen's very own "Night of the Disgust" rather well. This flick proves that anybody can make a movie nowadays, no matter who they are or how the end product will turn out to be. Thumbs way low below the lowest of the low.

The acting and the pacing help this movie rise above the underlying script, a hackneyed, contrived story of the search for a serial killer. It has all the usual elements? Do we have a methodical, team oriented policeman in conflict with an intuitive cop with no impulse control? Yes. Do we have a list of stereotyped suspects that fit the bill perfectly? Yes, including (!!!) a psychiatric patient with a pet claw hammer.